


Turkish Tea and Insurance Claims

by icyowl97



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos' hair is perfect, Cecil is a Dork, Cecilos Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 09:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1852408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icyowl97/pseuds/icyowl97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil has always greeted Carlos when Carlos got home, or at least left him a note, so when Carlos finds himself without either, he finds himself worried- no, not worried. Concerned. </p>
<p>(Basically, I thought to myself, "What if Cecil got Carlos an insurance claim for Carlos' hair?" and then this happened.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turkish Tea and Insurance Claims

When Carlos got home, Cecil didn't greet him. While setting his keys on the table by the door, he scanned the flat, clothed area. Cecil had changed the table cloth. Or at least, Carlos thought he had. He distinctly remembered that this morning there had been a glow in the dark yellow table cloth that had sent his Geiger counter into hysterics (it had taken Carlos at least fifteen minutes to get her to stop crying, and another two hours to get her to work again), and now it was a pale blue table cloth with purple swirls. Which were actually swirling.

When Cecil left, he always left a little note on the table with a small gift, usually a chocolate bar or a small cup of tea, so that if Carlos got home before him, he'd still, sort of, be able to greet him. If Cecil got home, then he'd put the note and chocolate bar away and greet Carlos himself. Carlos had spent a few weeks convinced that it was magic, since he left for work first, and that Cecil simply willed the note into existence, until he'd come home for lunch one day and the note had been there. While he felt a bit silly about all the science he'd done on it (he'd passed up on a chance to watch Night Vale's hooded figures parade to preform numerous tests on one of Cecil's notes, and the chocolate bar. Though the tea had managed to stay warm all day, and he was still checking that one out.) he was very touched by Cecil's sweet gesture.

But today, there was no note, and there was no Cecil. Carlos wasn't sure when, exactly, he'd gotten used to Cecil greeting him with a smile no matter how hard Cecil's day had been, but now that Cecil wasn't here Carlos felt like there was something wrong, like something was missing. He wasn't sure if he should be concerned that Cecil was mad at him, or if he should be concerned for Cecil, but he did know that he was worried.

He pulled out his phone and checked it quickly. He hadn't had a date planned with Cecil, or anything very important. All his events for today were pretty standard, scientific stuff. He didn't have anything planned with Cecil until bowling night on Friday, and he was pretty sure today was Wednesday. He didn't recall Friday being moved up, and usually the SSP would change his phone's date for him if time did change.

Carlos looked at his phone again. He'd been standing in the doorway for fifteen minutes now just because Cecil hadn't been there to greet him or left a note. He hadn't even closed the door behind him. Thankfully the SSP officer had brought the groceries in and put the groceries away, which was doubly great because Carlos had gotten some frozens, including ice cream, and it would have been pretty bad if those had melted. Or caught on fire, in the case of the ice cream.

Closing the door behind him Carlos walked into the kitchen and put some water on the stove to boil. As soon as he got it started, he walked over to the middle of the kitchen to stand under the open skylight. "Thank you, officer!" He said to the skylight. 

"Don't mention it." A voice replied. "By the way, Mr. Scientist, you should probably oil this skylight, because it's a bit hard to open."

"That's probably because our last officer left the skylight open during the monsoon hour on Friday. It was a disaster. The entire house got flooded, I had to fight a shark just to get to the coffee pot, Cecil was pulling starfish out of his socks for weeks, and the hinges for the skylight got wet and rusted."

"This skylight has rust?" The SSP officer squeaked, and Carlos heard the officer scramble away from the skylight.

"Not anymore, sir. We called pest control. It's still a bit bumpy though, so you probably will have to file it down. Sorry I didn't tell you earlier." The kettle began chirping to inform Carlos it was done. "Would you like some tea, officer?" 

"Oh, yes please. With lemon?"

"I'm afraid I don't have any lemon." Carlos poured three glasses of tea: one for himself, one for he SSP officer, and one for Cecil. "Anything in it? Sugar?"

"No thank you." The voice sighed. "Just plain."

Carlos dragged a kitchen chair over to the skylight and stood on it, handing the glass up to the SSP officer. "When you're done, if you could please just wash out the glass. Please don't break it. This is Cecil's grandmother's Turkish tea set."

"It's very lovely." The voice said, leaning over the skylight a bit to grab it. "I had actually been admiring it while putting away your flour." They leaned back, vanishing from sight. "This tea is lovely too. I've always enjoyed rose tea." 

"Thank you." Carlos put the chair away and finished his and Cecil's tea. "Do you know where Cecil is?"

"He came in, and he hasn't left so I'm assuming that he's still in the house." 

Carlos sighed. "Well, thank you officer." He said, heading off to Cecil's office. So Cecil was home. Did that mean that Cecil was mad at him, or did it mean something horrible had happened inside the house? Carlos was reasonable sure that the SSP would have noticed the brutal murder of the Voice of Night Vale happening right under their noses, so that had to mean Cecil was just mad... right?

Gosh, when had Carlos gotten so concerned about Cecil that he actually wanted Cecil to be mad at him? He took a sip of his tea, trying to calm his jumpy nerves. There was probably a reasonable explanation for this. One that didn't even require Cecil to be mad at him.

He was so caught up in his thinking that he didn't hear Cecil's voice at first, only noticing when it raised to a yell. 

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Cecil's voice boomed from his office, and Carlos flinched, spilling his tea all over his lab coat. 

Carlos swore, trying to clean it up by dabbing at the front of his lab coat with his sleeves, and succeeding only in getting the sleeves covered in tea as well.

"That's a ridiculous claim! How dare you say that?!" Cecil's voice could be easily heard through the door, but Carlos couldn't hear the voice of whoever he was talking to. "I will not calm down! You called me a liar-" He paused for a moment, clearly listening to someone else. 

"No, that's the definition of a liar." Cecil said, his voice back at it's normal level now. "A liar is defined as someone who doesn't tell the truth- No, no, twisting the facts is still not telling the tru- Well then that dictionary is wrong. Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Honestly."

Carlos, giving up on trying to clean himself up, set the tea glasses on the floor and tried to pulled the door open. It was locked.

Cecil sounded exasperated. "Well course I'm not lying by my own definition, which is not ridiculous or stupid and also happens to be the right definition. Nor am I over-exaggerating. I will swear. Cross my heart and hope to die, bake my bones into a pie."

Carlos pulled on the door harder. Swearing in Night Vale was an awful, awful idea, because it was all literal. "Cecil!"

Cecil didn't seem to hear him. "Oh, so that's all you need to make this deal? You just needed to know that I'm serious about this? And not going to do something and skip town with the money? Well okay then! Of course I'll sign in blood!"

"Cecil!" Carlos gave up on trying to the open the door and began knocking on the door. "Cecil!"

"Just a moment, Carlos!" Cecil said cheerfully. 

"Cecil! Don't sign anything!" Carlos cried. "What is-"

The door opened and Cecil pulled Carlos into a hug. "I'm sorry, Carlos, I didn't think it would take that long. I meant to meet you when you got in..."

"But what did you do?" Carlos asked, stepping back and looking Cecil over. Cecil still had all his limbs, and the only obvious bleeding was from his hand where he'd signed something.

"Remember what we talked about last night?" Cecil looked very pleased with himself, and Carlos' worry began to give way to confusion. 

"Last night...?" Carlos had no idea.

"Remember? You said that I should take out an insurance policy on your hair!" If Cecil's grin got any wider he might hurt himself. He was very, very pleased with himself.

Carlos gaped at him, remembering the conversation now. "An insurance policy... Cecil, that was a joke!"

Last night Cecil had been talking about how lovely Carlos' hair was, and Carlos had said, in jest, that maybe Cecil should get insurance for Carlos' hair. He hadn't thought that Cecil would actually try to get a claim, and it hadn't even occurred to him that an insurance company would actually approve of it.

Cecil's smile faded a bit. "A joke?"

"Cecil, you can't take out an insurance policy on someone's hair!" 

"But I... I can't return it for five years...." Cecil now looked a bit guilty. "I'm sorry..."

"I... How on earth did you manage to get it.... How much is it for?" Fine. So Carlos was still able to be curious about how much his hair was worth despite his concern about his boyfriend's bones getting baked into a pie over his hair. Curios was the seventeenth thing a scientist was. Vain was totally not on the list, even though Carlos did like hearing Cecil's poetry about his hair. Sometimes.

"A lot. Aren't you mad? You said I shouldn't have...." Cecil sighed. "If you really want to cut your hair, it'll be okay. They can only bake my original bones into bread, and most of my bones have been replaced with metal anyways. So if I just get a couple more, I'll be fine."

Carlos knew about that at least. That was the reason he and Cecil had driven to see Carlos' family. There was no way Carlos was going to let his boyfriend get baked into a pie, so it looked like he'd have to cancel that hair cutting appointment. 

But in spite of all that, there was just something so cute about this situation. Cecil had actually tried to get an insurance claim on his hair. No, he had actually gotten an insurance claim on Carlos' hair.

"No, I said it shouldn't have been possible." Carlos corrected, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. "I just... Oh my goodness, Cecil, you're adorable."

Cecil smiled again, bashfully. "Really?"

Carlos nodded. "It's a scientific fact. Now come on, I need a cup of tea."


End file.
